Process for collection and treatment of garbage

ABSTRACT

A process for the collection, treatment and disposition of domestic garbage, wherein the garbage is dehydrated in a hydraulic press to remove excess fluids therefrom, and the dehydrated garbage is hermetically sealed in compact cases for subsequent transportation and handling. The containers are formed in two parts, one of which is placed in the cylinder end of a ram-type press and the other in the piston end so that the garbage is compressed and dehydrated between the two parts of the container. Pressing the garbage together brings the two sections of the container into interlocking, sealing engagement so that one compression stroke of the press compresses and hermetically seals the garbage in the containers.

PROCESS FOR COLLECTION AND TREATMENT OF GARBAGE [76] Inventor: Jorge Galvez Figari, Enrique Larreta St. No. 12, Madrid, Spain [22] Filed: Apr. .17, 1972 [21] Appl. No.: 244,924

52 US. Cl. 53/24 [51] Int. Cl B65b 1/24 [58] Field of Search 53/24 [5 6] References Cited UNITED'STATES PATENTS 3,330,088 7/1967 Dunlea 53/24 3,451,185 6/1969 Tezuka 53/24 X 9/1971 Lund 53/24 X Jan. 29, 1974 Primary Examiner-Travis S. McGehee Attorney, Agent, or FirmFrancis C. Browne et a1.

57 ABSTRACT A process for the collection, treatment and disposition of domestic garbage, wherein the garbage is dehydrated in a hydraulic press to remove excess fluids therefrom, and the dehydrated garbage is hermetically sealed in compact cases for subsequent transportation and handling. The containers are formed in two parts,

one of which is placed in the cylinder end of a ram- 5 Claims, No Drawings PROCESS FOR COLLECTION AND TREATMENT OF GARBAGE The present invention related to a process for the collection and treatment of garbage. More particularly, the invention relates to such a process which includes the compression and dehydration of the matter which is simultaneously packed in sealed containers which are easy to handle, and are susceptible of being stored in special warehouses inside urban areas for their subsequent direct distribution to farmers for use as a fertilizer for their lands.

Not only the collection but also the treatment of garbage in large urban areas present problems which are very well known, the solution of which become complex and more onerous as a function of the number of inhabitants. At the present time the procedure employed is to collect the garbage in special motor trucks in which the pasty mass of garbage is submitted to a light pressing which reduces its volume by approximately 30 to 40 per cent, primarily by the reduction or elimination of voids in the mass.

These special trucks travel, once they are full, up to large depositories where the garbage sustains a transformation, generally by burning, which permits subsequent storing and eventual sacking of the residue for transport to the lands to be fertilized. In accordance with this procedure, there exist a plurality of inconveniences, among which the following are indicated as the most prominent ones.

The special trucks cannot be utilized in an efficient manner due to the bulky nature of the garbage being handled, with the result that a truck can admit the garbage of a small number of living quarters in a single load. Thus, the fleet of trucks for the evacuation of garbage from a large population area has to be a considerably large one and in view of the special characteristics of the vehicles, necessarily expensive.

The active stage of garbage collection requires only a small fraction of the operating time of the special trucks, with the rest of the time being necessarily spent travelling from the loading zone up to the treatment place which, by necessity, is normally a considerable distance from the points of collection.

During the transport stage it is possible that there arise pollutions simply due to emanations, in view of the fact that the trucks are not tight. Thus, there exists the risk, unfortunately frequent enough, of direct pollutions originated by unwilling pourings or originated by an accident of the carrier vehicle.

The production of a great amount of smokes in cremation which noticeably pollute the atmosphere in the vicinity of the transforming stations and the eventual pollution of the waters flowing in the vicinity of the station itself.

The lack of utilization in very high percentages of the fertilizing properties of the garbage due both to the burning of the major portion of the material and to the destruction of the bactericide property of the vegetable agents contained in the burned residue.

In view of the foregoing and other defects of the prior art systems, there has been arrived at the creation of the procedure which is described herein and consisting substantially, as has been previously indicated, in the high pressure pressing of the soft and compactible mass which constitutes the garbage, with the elimination of a great part of the water contained in it and the reduction in seven of eight parts of the original volume for the formation of tight receptacles which may be transported with ease and which may be stored in warehouses near the collection zones and from where they are removed by the farmers themselves, who, on the land to be fertilized, simply deposit the same receptacles on the soil which has been prepared adequately starting the fertilizing action at the time these receptacles are broken by any procedure whatsoever, such as Y is the passing of a disc grader drawn by a tractor which simultaneously covers with earth the product which has been deposited. With the opening of the receptacles, the proper fermentations and reactions which determine the fertilizing of the lands are initiated, while at the same time the reactions themselves facilitate the total destruction of the packaging material.-

The process which has just been described starts in the stage of garbage collection, it being necessary to distinguish in actual practice the cases of collective living quarters and of one-family living quarters only for the purposes of providing the necessary pressing elements, in view of the fact that even if it is true that in collective living quarters it is feasible and profitable to install a special press for the treatment of the totality of the garbage of the building, this would result in costs out of proportion when one deals with small volumes as is the case of isolated living quarters.

In the first case, that is to say, of collective living quarters, it is only necessary to use the collecting conduits existing in modern living quarters, or else the installation of an outside collecting network in communication with the evacuation zones of the different individual living quarters for collection at the lower part of the building where there is provided a feeding box and a pressing and packaging machine. A standard or special motor truck regularly collects the formed receptacles at determined periods of time and transports them to the warehouses which have been provided.

In the case of one-family living quarters which are relatively separated one from each other, the garbage from the classical garbage cans is collected by a special motor truck equipped with its own pressing machine which is driven by a hydraulic mechanism of an adequate capacity, and which is put in operation at the time the loading feeding box has received an adequate quantity of garbage. During its run this same special motor truck forms the treated garbage receptacles, which are stored directly in the motor truck itself, up to the end of the run in the corresponding zone or else up to the arrival at the container receiving and storing warehouse.

In both cases there exists in the pressing stage an elimination of water whcih determines a weight reduction of between 15 and 40 per cent. This water, in the cases of fixed installations in collective living quarters, is led to the buildings general collector, while the residual water proceeding from the treatment in the presses installed on the motor trucks is poured onto the storm waters collectors or the sewage network. These residual waters, in both cases, may be disinfectedly treated prior to their pouring onto the general networks.

The compressing machines or equipments for the packaging treatment of the garbage comprise a receiving feeding box for the same which at the adequate moments pass to a cylinder-shaped receiving chamber, inside of which acts a hydraulically driven ram. The first part of the travel of the ram has the sole purpose of moving the material to be treated' in a linear and longitudinal manner toward one end of the receiving chamber, which is the compression chamber, and which chamber is furnished with punched holes of an adequate size so as to permit the outflow of the liquid contained which pours into a collector connected to the drainage network or a complementary tank attached thereto.

The bottom of the chamber is provided with a hinged cover and safety locks which permit the opening once the operation is finished, but which maintain it in a resisting manner during the compression of the garbage therein. An essential characteristic, not only of the cover of the bottom of the compression chamber but in addition the active head of the working ram, is that they are concave with a complementary half-sphere capacity, providing support for the complementary semispherical portions of the containers used to store the compressed and dehydrated mass. These container sections are provided with lock seam means which when faced one to each other determine the spherical container. These lock seams determine the union of the borders of the half-containers in such a manner that, finally, this element is rigid and tight. The materials employed are preferably plastics or tinned sheet iron which have not been treated in such a manner that when they are deposited on the ground, the ambient humidity itself determines the destruction of the container material.

It may easily be understood that the characteristics of the compressing and packaging machines or equipments may be as varied as is necessary by the magnitude of the installation, there only being necessary the conditions which have been enumerated within the possibility of developing the pressures which are sufficient for the work they have to do, understanding as sufficient the one created by a standardized hydraulic equipment such as the one employed in determined types of motor trucks and for the application on the same, while in the installations which are considered as fixed and adopted in collective living quarters with large volumes of matter to be eliminated, no problems exist in connection with the pressure to be obtained while they may arise due to the speed of the operations, being problems which is practice are perfectly resolved by the industries specialized in hydraulic pressure equipments.

Finally there must be considered a special configuration for the collection and transformation motor trucks wherein the compartment receiving the formed balls must have special characteristics to permit a rational storing, especially gravitational and by the own rolling of the spherical containers which will be distributed in consecutive tiers from the receiving point of the ball and with the creation of longitudinal separators which prevent the free movement of the same, due to the running, such as tangent forces which could unbalance the vehicle, for which there are described longitudinal ribs in each one of the successive tiers forming the compartment.

Having sufficiently described the nature and the scope of the invention, it is made known that the application of the same could be the subject of variations in the mechanisms, the devices and the accessory elements utilized, provided the same does not alter, change or modify the essence proposed.

The inventor reserves for himself the right to obtain the opportune certificates of addition for those improvements which practice may advise.

I claim:

1. A process for the collection and treatment of garbage comprising the steps of applying high pressure to said garbage by depositing the raw garbage into the inlet of a hydraulically driven ram-type press including a piston movable within a cylinder between said inlet and a compression chamber having a plurality of apertures formed therein to permit the escape of fluids, driving said piston to convey garbage from said inlet to said compression chamber and to compress the garbage therein to eliminate fluids therefrom to produce a reduction of from 15 to 40 per cent of the weight of the raw garbage, hermetically sealing the compact masses into individual containers by placing a container within said compression chamber in position to have the garbage compressed therein, placing a closure member into contact with said piston for movement therewith, forcing said closure and said container into interlocking engagement to hermetically seal the garbage upon movement of said piston to said compression chamber, and transporting and storing the sealed containers at established locations for subsequent use as fertilizer.

2. The process as defined in claim 1, further comprising the steps of depositing the sealed containers on the soil to be fertilized, subsequently breaking the containers, and covering the broken containers and the garbage with earth.

3. The method as defined in claim 1 wherein said container and said closure each comprise complimentary half sections of a spherical container, with said half sections having interlocking fastener means around their peripheral edges for sealing the container upon pressing the two sections together.

4. The process as defined in claim 1 wherein said press is mounted in the lower part of a multiple family dwelling and wherein said inlet is connected by conduits to the respective living quarters, and wherein the fluids removed from the garbage are initially subjected to a disinfection treatment and then disposed of through the buildings general sewerage system.

5. The process as defined in claim 1 wherein said press is mounted on a motor truck for movement to various garbage collecting points whereby the step of compressing the garbage may be carried out during movement of the truck, and wherein the fluids removed from the garbage are disposed of through the storm or sanitary sewerage systems and wherein the sealed containers are transported within the body of said truck, said container being retained against relative movement during movement of the truck by separators mounted within the truck. 

1. A process for the collection and treatment of garbage comprising the steps of applying high pressure to said garbage by depositing the raw garbage into the inlet of a hydraulically driven ram-type press including a piston movable within a cylinder between said inlet and a compression chamber having a plurality of apertures formed therein to permit the escape of fluids, driving said piston to convey garbage from said inlet to said compression chamber and to compress the garbage therein to eliminate fluids therefrom to produce a reduction of from 15 to 40 per cent of the weight of the raw garbage, hermetically sealing the compact masses into individual containers by placing a container within said compression chamber in position to have the garbage compressed therein, placing a closure member into contact with said piston for movement therewith, forcing said closure and said container into interlocking engagement to hermetically seal the garbage upon movement of said piston to said compression chamber, and transporting and storing the sealed containers at established locations for subsequent use as fertilizer.
 2. The process as defined in claim 1, further comprising the steps of depositing the sealed containers on the soil to be fertilized, subsequently breaking the containers, and covering the broken containers and the garbage with earth.
 3. The method as defined in claim 1 wherein said container and said closure each comprise complimentary half sections of a spherical container, with said half sections having interlocking fastener means around their peripheral edges for sealing the container upon pressing the two sections together.
 4. The process as defined in claim 1 wherein said press is mounted in the lower part of a multiple family dwelling and wherein said inlet is connected by conduits to the respective living quarters, and wherein the fluids removed from the garbage are initially subjected to a disinfection treatment and then disposed of through the building''s general sewerage system.
 5. The process as defined in claim 1 wherein said press is mounted on a motor truck for movement to various garbage collecting points whereby the step of compressing the garbage may be carried out during movement of the truck, and wherein the fluids removed from the garbage are disposed of through the storm or sanitary sewerage systems and wherein the sealed containers are transported within the body of said truck, said container being retained against relative movement during movement of the truck by separators mounted within the truck. 